The answer wouldn't fall within the difficulty of reading it. It would however downgrade the officers image when he or she got up to your bike to write you a ticket with the remains of a jelly or creme filled donut running down their pant leg from trying to eat said donut while looking sideways to read the plate during consumption of that donut..

 

All I have to ask is, what's so horrible about leaving the plate horizontal, as it was intended? What's so great about mounting the plate vertical?

 

I think it's mostly for the new automatic plate scanners law enforcement is using now. That part I have issue with .... just scanning looking for anything with no reasonable doubt , but which way it's mounted on my own bike (or car for that matter) I could care less , always thought the vertical looked ridiculous anyway with letter's/numbers sideways...... just appears like a wrecked bike with a part skewed.

 

This is a "right" not worth fighting for. The plates are there for a purpose, and to be effective they must be able to be easily and quickly read. We don't want to dilute the battle for important rights, like abolishing helmet laws, by screwing around with an issue like vertical plates.

 

+1 - IMO, you got to pick your battles, there are more important issues worth fighting for.

 

First, this has nothing to do with "rights" and more to do with stupidity. When they make the operation of a motor vehicle a "right" in this country I and others like yourself will probably be long dead. Second, we do have a "right" to privacy and if the "law" in your state allows the use of the local or national license data base to just check you out for the hell of it, I would say you folks have a real problem in Florida because this would be unauthorized access. At present there is an investigation in Tennessee for this very thing where a State Trooper had been checking people out for no reason according to the governor's office.

To me, the plate is no more or less difficult to read in either the vertical or horizontal position. If the law enforcement agencies were having such a hard time reading them why not just go to a speed brake sized plate like those used in Europe. They could read those from the donut shop down the block.

 

The automatic scanning of plates in Florida really has nothing to do with the driver/rider or their personal information. The scanned plate number is run against a database of plate numbers that have been flagged as revoked or reported as stolen.

It's nothing more than an efficient way to ID stolen vehicles or plates and vehicles on the road for which the plate has been revoked by the state, ie. no proof of insurance.

 

So let me get this straight, this electromechanical device that is supposed to be efficient is so inefficient it can't read an alpha numeric text that is vertical as opposed to horizontal? Geez, something the human eye and brain can do that some high dollar machine can't? I love it. Is it color blind too?

 

Sorry, I just stated simple fact regarding privacy as mentioned above. Responding to a "know it all" is pointless.

 

Florida does have politions just giving lip service (look at the home and auto insurance rape that is happening). But actually, I think the horizontal tag is a good idea anyway.

But, why would it matter if your in another state?

I mean, Florida is filled with people that don't live here full time or visit for months at a time. The old people that live here are bad enough drivers, then compound that with the VERY BAD DRIVERS that flock here during the winter from the North and Canada and it's an outright a mess ..... and year after year it just gets worse.

Just this week on 3 occasions, I personally seen the first aid lifting a wrecked motorcycle or put the cyclist in an ambulance. I know some of this has nothing to do with a vertical plate, but I'd think any voice would be counted. How could they tell if you don't own a second property to reside in Florida from an email address?